The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporates the European Convention of Human Rights into our domestic law. The police, the CPS, Customs, and the Courts are all 'public bodies' and as such it is unlawful for them to act in a way which is incompatible with a citizen's human rights (s6 HRA 1998).
Despite its often secretive nature, the issue of covert surveillance always seems to be the subject of attention. This recently led the Scottish government to reassess the role in society of such surv...
Why is 'phone evidence' so prolific in prosecutions?It is a simple recognition that the explosion in the last 10 years of the use of mobile phones has given the police a very useful investigatory and ...
A local authority admitted in 2012 to spying on a family regarding a fraudulent school application. Many readers will be too well aware of cases brought about by Covert Police Operations usually invol...
It was recently reported in the press that the tax inspectors of H.M. Revenue and Customs are to be given new powers allowing them to listen into tax-payers phone calls and plant bugs in their homes a...
In October 2000, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) came into force. RIPA, and the Codes of Practice that accompany it, provide a statutory backdrop to all covert police operations...
It is a fact of life that the British way of policing is now heavily dependent on technology and intelligence. The proliferation of CCTV cameras makes UK citizens the most watched in Europe and reader...
It is now common-knowledge that the police have at their disposal listening device technology, i.e. 'bugs'. In fact the type of technology involved is freely available to the public and the details ar...
Background to the Law
Since the year 2000, anti-terror legislation in the United Kingdom has been the subject of much controversy due to its wide scope and seeming incompatibility with sections of th...